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How do you know when or if your musics up to label worthy?

I basically know shit about labels. I know theres like 3 kinds (I think). But I finished a song today and was thinking "shit, maybe I should try getting a label".

Is it worth it?
Is there any money in it? (not to live on lol but to get more equipment)
Anyone here have labels & how much did you get when you started?

And lastly, is this label worthy? FDOS - Robby Roxx.mp3(2 days works, needs a bit more work)

Any favorite links anyone has would be cool too. Just be thinking about getting a label but I don't wanna do it if its gonna be a waste of time.

Thanks - Roxx

Its hard to be objective enough on your own music to be able to tell if it is worthy of a label or not, but i guess when u have first signed one track, that you should be able to know.

Had a quick listen to the song, it still needs a lot of work - the overall sound is very "mid-range"-ey/muddy, the melodic progression is okay, but nothing special...

Of course, it totally depends on which label you're after, there are thousands out there, heaps of digital labels who will manage to sell one or two copies of your song...

If your goal is a label such as vandit or anjunabeats, you're not ready at this point in time.

Just keep working on what you're doing. Look to improve each day in some area relating to your music. Listen to your favourite songs and make notes about what sounds "better" about those songs, compared to your songs, and why they sound better. Then work on raising the quality of your own songs - musically, the mix quality, the production techniques. With consistent daily focus on improvement, you'll be making songs much better than this in six month's time.

If I were in your position, what I'd be after is some critique of my track so I can improve it.

Please take this as *constructive* critisism, my intentions are just to try to help you achieve an even better sound I'll update this post when I get more time to listen..

For now, the first thing that stands out is the kick. Your kick needs a fair bit of work. It sounds too deep, almost as if you've lowpassed it. From my limited understanding you should almost be doing the opposite. I'm getting so much muddy low end from your kick it makes me feel somewhat dizzy each time it hits. Also, it sounds like you are using different velocities for the 4th kick in each bar, giving it this 1, 2, 3, *4* feeling, which adds to the seasickness effect from the muddy/low-end heavy kick, IMO.

As derail said, keep listening to artists and tracks that really move you. Listen to what you really like about these tracks.

Keep working mate

The first thing that springs to my mind is the kick, like daveth says it sounds too deep. But with a bit of fine tuning all around i think it would be pretty good. Nice job man

Re: How do you know when or if your musics up to label worthy?

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox Is it worth it? Is there any money in it? (not to live on lol but to get more equipment) Anyone here have labels & how much did you get when you started?

this should probably not be one of your first questions.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox And lastly, is this label worthy? FDOS - Robby Roxx.mp3(2 days works, needs a bit more work)

if you have to ask, then probably not. If you say it needs more work, then definitely not.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox Any favorite links anyone has would be cool too. Just be thinking about getting a label but I don't wanna do it if its gonna be a waste of time. Thanks - Roxx

This stuff isn't easy and it's not gonna just fall in your lap. If you're not willing to risk wasting some time, you're never gonna get the rewards.







...that being said, like someone else mentioned there are a TON of labels out there, and twice as much garbage (at a minimum). My experience with digital promo pools made me realize that there is quite a bit of really cheesy music that someone somewhere thought would be an excellent idea to release.

Kick needs reworking, otherwise it sounds cheezy enough to be put out by some label.
Be sure to visit www.plugzurcheez.com.

send it to various different levels of labels and you'll soon find out!

quote:

Originally posted by djms send it to various different levels of labels and you'll soon find out!

Yeah, and then wait 3 months for no reply.

Kick is on different velocities because as the filter on the fx opens the higher resonating fx wraps around the lower velocities.

Plus it drops lowest on the clap, and I wanted something unstable before the bass dropped in. Think the real problem here is LP filter. Not because its cutting higher frequencies but the way I equal'd it after.

Whoever said you want the opposite sound from a kick, thats what YOU want. I'll list a hundred great songs with nice thumpy kicks that have all the highs and some mids cut out.

I agree melodic progression and synth itself can use work, it won't be hard to fix.
Parts I was excited about was the acid like bass sound that drops in with the actual bass.
After I made this someone on another board told be to listen to Tiestos - He's A Pirate. The sounds are identical.

I did it w/out realizing and though "shit I'm getting good".

Plus I did tons of subtle automations and more percussion work than usual.

W/e the case, to DJ Mayfag:
Don't tell me what I should and shouldn't be asking.
If you don't have the mental capacity to answer the question, don't try to shift your shame onto me.

Forums are MEANT for questions and answers. I make music because I love it, and if someone had a simple question I'd either answer it or if I didn't know leave it alone.
Thats not CC, thats being worthless.

If not, feel free to explain how it is CC and I'll school you on why its not.

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox W/e the case, to DJ Mayfag: Don't tell me what I should and shouldn't be asking. If you don't have the mental capacity to answer the question, don't try to shift your shame onto me.

Well, he brought up some good points. If you can't tell by yourself that your music is cheesy, obnoxious, derivative shit, then you're probably not ready for a label.

the simple answer is this... your music is "label-worthy" once labels start contacting you...

do you play out? do the people go ape shit when you play? these are important questions... do you play only your own material when you play out?

david

quote:

Originally posted by DJ Robby Rox W/e the case, to DJ Mayfag: Don't tell me what I should and shouldn't be asking. If you don't have the mental capacity to answer the question, don't try to shift your shame onto me. Forums are MEANT for questions and answers. I make music because I love it, and if someone had a simple question I'd either answer it or if I didn't know leave it alone. Thats not CC, thats being worthless. If not, feel free to explain how it is CC and I'll school you on why its not.

Based on your defensiveness, YOU are not label ready, nevermind your music. Look at your original post. What else can one take from what you posted? You seem lazy and not in it for the love of the music. Only AFTER i noted this did you mention loving music. Not a coincidence, IMNSHO.

Like someone else mentioned, have you played your track out? The dancefloor is the ultimate testing ground. Your crowd will tell you if it's worthy or not.

Sounds a little too happycoreish for my tastes, lol...

Anyway, I'll echo what others have said here, which is that your tracks are "label worthy" when a reputable label takes interest in them.

A lot of labels are also a little picky and might ask you to change a few things here and there before committing to anything - so your ability to take criticism will eventually come into play, and judging by your responses here, you definitely need some work in that area.

Yes, certain things are a matter of taste, and you don't have to change them if you don't want to, but labels also base their decisions on taste, so you can't escape that.

Taking a look at the spectrum, this track is really bass-heavy, even into the sub-bass region. The top end is underrepresented by quite a bit. At times it sounds kind of like listening underwater. There are a couple of things you can do to remedy the situation. I'd start by putting a high-pass filter on bass and/or kick and roll off some of the sub-bass, or at the very least low-shelf it so it doesn't dominate the mix. Secondly, the muddiness some have described above may be due to frequency overlap between your true bass parts (bassline, kick, etc.) and your leads/fx/percs. If you haven't already, you'll probably want to high-pass everything that you don't want to explicitly occupy the bass region of the spectrum. The cutoff will need to be set on a track by track basis, just enough so that any residual low-end is removed, thereby making space for the true bass parts to play unencumbered. If you already have done this, then perhaps the bass and kick just need to be EQ'd a bit so as to not sound as muddy.

You may also want to consider raising the levels on your high percs and other trebley parts to compensate some for the heavy bass (or decrease the levels on the bass parts a bit, or both). The fact that there is such a dramatic disparity between the levels of the highs and lows suggest you may have a monitoring issue. Maybe your monitors are underrepresenting the bass and you are overcompensating by increasing the bass part levels more than they ought to be. I could be wrong of course, but I'm just trying to sort out why there's such an imbalance.

Also, it looks like this track has been limited to oblivion in an effort to achieve greater loudness. This probably seemed necessary due to the fact that your mix was being dominated by the lower frequencies that just don't have the same perceived loudness as the rest of the spectrum. I guess heavy limiting can sound ok in the right circumstances, but you may want to re-evaluate how hard you push the limiter after you've sorted out the spectral imbalance.

I'm not going to comment on the arrangement, composition, or patch selection since I think those qualities are relative to the artist's intention, so saying what I would prefer would be borderline irrelevant.

A last piece of advice: one of the best ways to know how your song fares technically speaking is to compare it to other songs in a similar style. How does their frequency balance look? What are their RMS levels like? Dragging a WAV of a pro song into your sequencer and playing it alongside your own song in an A/B fashion can also help you hear how your song compares sonically to those you are trying to rival. This kind of thing takes hundreds of hours of practice to get good at and will only improve over the years as you continue to refine your technique. Don't take too seriously those who would have you re-write your song to their taste, but do take the time to see what makes a good mix sound the way it does and apply that to your own mixing.

Well said, MaxC

Dj Robby Rox, a number of us provided similar feedback on a song you posted (a month ago?) so I was quite amazed to read "is this ready for a label?" in so short a time.

This process takes a long time to develop. It'll take a while for our comments to fully make sense - spend a lot of time in the studio, trying out what people are suggesting (and do a lot of referencing against your favourite songs). At this point a frequency analyser would help, though they are dangerous devices if incorrect mixing decisions are made based on them. At least you'll be able to see how bass heavy your songs are compared to all your favourite songs and look to correct that.

There are no problems with deep, thumpy kicks - absolutely, that's artistic preference and many great songs employ deep kicks. However, there are problems with songs that don't have a pleasing frequency balance overall, that don't have a nice mix of lows, mids and highs.

If you work hard and really focus on improving for the next 6 months, you may well have songs that are label ready. It's up to you.

quote:

the simple answer is this... your music is "label-worthy" once labels start contacting you...

quote:

Anyway, I'll echo what others have said here, which is that your tracks are "label worthy" when a reputable label takes interest in them.

Thats exactly right ... you know your ready when they start asking you for your tunes. lol

quote:

Originally posted by DJMaytag Based on your defensiveness, YOU are not label ready, nevermind your music. Look at your original post. What else can one take from what you posted? You seem lazy and not in it for the love of the music. Only AFTER i noted this did you mention loving music. Not a coincidence, IMNSHO. Like someone else mentioned, have you played your track out? The dancefloor is the ultimate testing ground. Your crowd will tell you if it's worthy or not.

You're right. I am lazy and don't love music.

My covers blown!!
In actuality, my LOVE for music is a direct reprensentation for any "defensiveness" you percieve.

And what else can someone take from what I posted?
Try reading every other post in here except yours, where people actually had relative advice to dispense rather than a bunch of backwards attempts to rationalize.

This is the first time in 4 years (since I started) that I've ever even brought up the topic of labels. And no, I'm yet to play out.

quote:

Originally posted by MaxC Taking a look at the spectrum, this track is really bass-heavy, even into the sub-bass region. The top end is underrepresented by quite a bit. At times it sounds kind of like listening underwater. There are a couple of things you can do to remedy the situation. I'd start by putting a high-pass filter on bass and/or kick and roll off some of the sub-bass, or at the very least low-shelf it so it doesn't dominate the mix. Secondly, the muddiness some have described above may be due to frequency overlap between your true bass parts (bassline, kick, etc.) and your leads/fx/percs. If you haven't already, you'll probably want to high-pass everything that you don't want to explicitly occupy the bass region of the spectrum. The cutoff will need to be set on a track by track basis, just enough so that any residual low-end is removed, thereby making space for the true bass parts to play unencumbered. If you already have done this, then perhaps the bass and kick just need to be EQ'd a bit so as to not sound as muddy. You may also want to consider raising the levels on your high percs and other trebley parts to compensate some for the heavy bass (or decrease the levels on the bass parts a bit, or both). The fact that there is such a dramatic disparity between the levels of the highs and lows suggest you may have a monitoring issue. Maybe your monitors are underrepresenting the bass and you are overcompensating by increasing the bass part levels more than they ought to be. I could be wrong of course, but I'm just trying to sort out why there's such an imbalance. Also, it looks like this track has been limited to oblivion in an effort to achieve greater loudness. This probably seemed necessary due to the fact that your mix was being dominated by the lower frequencies that just don't have the same perceived loudness as the rest of the spectrum. I guess heavy limiting can sound ok in the right circumstances, but you may want to re-evaluate how hard you push the limiter after you've sorted out the spectral imbalance. I'm not going to comment on the arrangement, composition, or patch selection since I think those qualities are relative to the artist's intention, so saying what I would prefer would be borderline irrelevant. A last piece of advice: one of the best ways to know how your song fares technically speaking is to compare it to other songs in a similar style. How does their frequency balance look? What are their RMS levels like? Dragging a WAV of a pro song into your sequencer and playing it alongside your own song in an A/B fashion can also help you hear how your song compares sonically to those you are trying to rival. This kind of thing takes hundreds of hours of practice to get good at and will only improve over the years as you continue to refine your technique. Don't take too seriously those who would have you re-write your song to their taste, but do take the time to see what makes a good mix sound the way it does and apply that to your own mixing.

Thank you Max, a truely objective and informative post.

I may have an issue with my speakers as they're not studio monitors but amplified (don't want to say "computer speakers" because they are used for other things) dual tweeters and mids that are mono'd to a 6" woofer.
I like the fact that they accentuate all of the highest, mid and low frequencies but I also know why this can present an issue producing.

And one thing I should note, theres not a single limiter on any channel but there is a compressor on most, except the master.
I have been comparing my tracks to professional ones and I keep having the same issue.

First the higher frequencies (on both my speakers and headphones) irritate my ears after looping my synth lines for a few hours to the point where I lower them on the equals till its bearable. So I'm probably over equalizing them, but when I don't they sound to screachy.. almost like nails on glass.

Also, the kicks on most pro tracks are always around twice as loud as mine (not on the DAW's db meters but after I render my tracks I find myself turning the volume to 80 on my system while the pro tracks sound the same around 40-50) so I'm always struggling to compress, equal and boost my kicks so that after I render I can match quality tracks.
Even after all this I'm still real low. I've tried everything (even new/better samples and a compressor on the master doesn't change it) but I'm never up to par. The db output on FL's meter always reads around 0 when I render (on the kick channel) so I have to be missing something important, logically I can't understand what.

I'm not in love with the melody or the synths, but my focus was more levels, the fx in the begining, and percussions. If I make the percs any louder I'll drown the synth line and if I raise the synth line I'll drown the percs lol. Towards the end you can hear the percs drowing out the last note of the melody so its a tough call.

Thanks a lot for the advice! Much appreciated.

-Roxx

quote:

Originally posted by derail Well said, MaxC Dj Robby Rox, a number of us provided similar feedback on a song you posted (a month ago?) so I was quite amazed to read "is this ready for a label?" in so short a time.

Around a month, maybe shorter lol.

quote:

This process takes a long time to develop. It'll take a while for our comments to fully make sense - spend a lot of time in the studio, trying out what people are suggesting (and do a lot of referencing against your favourite songs). At this point a frequency analyser would help, though they are dangerous devices if incorrect mixing decisions are made based on them. At least you'll be able to see how bass heavy your songs are compared to all your favourite songs and look to correct that.

Those frequency analyzers are pissing me off since I implemented them. I'm getting reds in the spectrum of all bass sounds, and my mids, orange/red in the hi's. But the whole track after rendering is STILL low.

quote:

There are no problems with deep, thumpy kicks - absolutely, that's artistic preference and many great songs employ deep kicks. However, there are problems with songs that don't have a pleasing frequency balance overall, that don't have a nice mix of lows, mids and highs.

Yep I just find kicks with hi's annoying and like they don't belong. A kick to me is like someones spine, and the leads are like the skin. You shouldn't be able to see the kick but people should know its there and that its the foundation for everything else.
So I like the deep thumpy kicks a lot.
Oompa Loompa would be a great example of this.

quote:

If you work hard and really focus on improving for the next 6 months, you may well have songs that are label ready. It's up to you.

Yeh I'm starting to see people may have gotten the idea that I'm looking for a label tommorow. I've always produced since I started pretty much to everyday, its an addiction, and I've turned down pussy for it in the past (thats when you know its a problem I think).

In the last 3-4 months I've decided my learning curve (as much as I practice) needs to be A LOT steeper.
Like my thread for the novation xiosynth.
Thats not so much for sounds as it is for conveniency to spread my addiction into other areas of my life, like cooking, bathroom.. maybe I can sneak it into work with some headphones and program patches.

But I want to get REAL serious, I know my tracks are subpar right now. (well certain parts of my tracks to be honest) But I know I can change that. My real question should have been "is there anything else I should be doing now besides practicing and improving my techniques with the eventual goal being a label?"

Mind you when I think label I don't think money.
I think potential to get my sounds out there when I want people to hear them.
I can produce for the next 10 years, render the crap to cd and bury it all in my collection, but this is my main point.

Who ever said "labels will find you", I'm sorry, I think that is 100% undeniably false.
Look at people who are music disgraces, like Amy Whinehouse. How did labels find her?
Why did labels find her?

My answer: Politics, culture, nothing to do with pure raw music.
Music now and days is so much politics and business then it is actual music, which is why theres an abundance of shit everywhere.

When I said "I know nothing about labels" what I meant is "I know nothing about the politics that go one before a label".

If Ferry Corsten sat in his studio and produced, and never ventured out or did what ever he did politically speaking to get his name out there, he'd be sitting in his studio alone giving people advice on this forum.
Ok I prob overdid it with that statement.

But politics was my point. And that has always been my real demotivator in producing.
Like the fact that I believe if you want people to hear your music, you have to be just as good with the politics of the scene as you are at actually producing.

Maybe I'm wrong, but thats what it seems like, and logically speaking, can be the only reason why theres so much crap out there.

There are some decent labels going through the music producer's promotion forum. And you'll get some responses from people who have radio shows, either saying they played your song or asking for permission to play your song. If you put quality music up, you'll be able to tell when the comments seem to be more from the "label worthy" end of the spectrum than the other end. A number of us have had things happen through posting quality songs on forums such as these. Thinking about the politics of the industry will distract you from giving your full focus to producing beautiful music.

We all have different journeys, since we all have different visions of what we want to create. One person may be into tribal drumming and incorporate that into their sound in an original way, another person may never look into tribal drumming in their lifetime, yet produce their own brand of fantastic music.

In broad terms, it is key to gain clarity on what you want. If there's a particular "overall quality sound" you're aiming for, there are probably a few of your favourite songs you could listen to in detail and work out how the sounds are put together in a way that sounds "quality". You need to become intensely aware of your own developmental needs based on your awareness of the gap between where you are now and where you want to be in the future. If you think you could develop your composition skills, dedicate a certain amount of time each week to learning about composition, to composing music. As time passes and you consistently spend time focusing on improving your skills, your skills will improve. And over time, you'll simply become brilliant - someone others may see as a "genius", someone who was "just born like that" (if they wish to limit their own potential by seeing you in this way).

Regarding the frequency analyser - I don't know which one you're using, but if it isn't showing you a marked difference in your overall frequency response compared to the overall frequency response of your favourite great-sounding songs, then it's either no good for useful analysis, or you need to use it more and ascertain what it's telling you - run your favourite tracks through it and become aware of your favourite songs' balances - they'll all be slightly different, but you'll get a rough ballpark to aim at. If your song is way outside the ballpark, it's something you'd probably want to pay attention to.

Beautiful lol. That sounded a tad philsophical but extremely motivating, thanks!

Since I've actually been dealing with this problem and posted a thread about it before (not labels but the freq/db meters) I'm going to take elaborate step by step pictures with as little text as possible and post a thread so people can see.

Its actually really hard to understand if I try to explain because I'm still not saying it right lol.
You'll see when I get the thread up and I'll pm you.

Theres a very large obvious piece missing from the puzzle but its like they never put it in the box to begin. I'll explain when I get the thread up in the next day or 2.

listen to your favourite pro track. then listen to yours. if it stacks up to it in more ways than one you are label worthy..

Hey

I think wat you def would focus on to get a cleaner mix is youre eq skills. And ESPECIALLY learn how to high pass correctly. When you think youre bass is to low and turn it up you acctually lower the hole song because the bass is taking over more and more. What you really need to do is cut the sub frequencys of the bass a bit. Then you will get a cleaner kick that will sound louder in the mix, and you will also get a cleaner mix because you get rid of some mudd. then you move on to experimenting the same thing to youre leads and pads and so on.

Hope you get what I mean, just test and you will see

I Also think its a bit wrong to make a song only to learn how to get the levels right, Ive done the same thing and now I think it was a waste of time. Better make a song that you like and have the best sounds you can get. Then it will be a hole lot easier to get the levels right if the sounds acctually fit in the first place.

Take youre time, dont get frustrated and make some songs you love, then the perfect mix will come eventually.

In my opinion, the most important skill you need as a producer, is to know when to ditch a sound or not.

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